Is Dubstep Avant Garde Musical Genius?
>> MIKE: Here’s an idea: Dubstep is avant garde musical genius. theme In case you’re not exactly sure what Dubstep is, we’ve planned a little lightswitch rave to make sure that we’re all up to speed. dubstep; wub, wub, wubbbb Ah-hem. So, dubstep. It’s a kind of dance music and it originated in the UK around 2002. It’s main characteristics are really complicated, syncopated rhythms, a crazy array of non-musical sounds and, oh, man, the wub. wub, wubbbbb Dubstep tends to polarize. shouting: Oh, my God! Meaning if it isn’t your thing, it’s noisy, aggressive, repetitive and inharmonic dross. But if it is your thing it’s noisy, aggressive, repetitive, inharmonic perfection. Enjoy it or not though, dubstep’s characteristics might actually put it in the running for avant garde genius. Even if we’re not all fans, dubstep does make a certain amount of sense to modern ears. After techno, hip hop, punk rock and jazz, we have a context for all of the crazy sounds that make up these wubs. wubbbbbb Sine waves, square waves, massive kick drums, VCOs, VCFs, noisy distortion techniques, complex tempo business, this stuff if really hard to make and to listen to. And to non-modern ears this stuff probably would sounds like just noise. raspberries, imitating dubstep A hundred years ago there were a bunch of people who were doing a bunch of the same things that Vex’d and Datsik and Skrillex are doing now but they were considered totally bizarre. Not like charming, pop culture bizarre, but like fringe of the art world bizarre. In 1924, George Antheil wrote the Ballet Mecanique, which was one of the first instances where music making machines were synchronized with live performers. Incidentally it was probably the first time that anybody complained about electronic music not actually being music. In the 1940s, Pierre Schaeffer invented musique concrete which used everyday sounds alongside and in place of musical instruments. But the gentlemen who would have loved dubstep the most are the Futurists. Based in Italy around the turn of the century, the Futurists embraced technology, violence and speed as the basis for their art. They were also antifeminist, fascist warmongers so they weren’t exclusively awesome. The Futurists’ best known composer, Luigi Russolo, argued that all sounds are musical and that noise is really just meaningless label. He even held noise concerts with his brother and their collection of weird, imposing looking, noise machines. Incidentally, it was probably the second time that people argued this was not music. And he imagined a Futurist orchestra which played what he called families of noise all of which are featured prominently in dubstep. wub, wubbbb But the Futurists, they were just a short lived movement at the fringe of the art world. Their performances were small affairs at which I’m sure many monocles were dropped. They weren’t even critically well received. After one performance in London, the Daily Sketch newspaper printed a review which read, “One listened in considerable distress, only sufferers of complete deafness should attend the next recital.” That is harsh. So clearly the Futurists never became as rich and famous as this bespectacled young man or played to packed arenas like Bassnectar does. This is probably a clear indication that Futurists were ahead of their time, while dubstep is right on time. We will stand in a room and and willing listen to: screeching: Call 9-1-1 now; wub, wub, wubbbb; dubstep for hours. And have a great time. Because we can easily connect it to a recent musical past. The past thirty years of pop culture has expanded the sonic landscape to include what the most avant garde twentieth century composers imagined exactly. tone Russolo wrote that music must break out of this limited circle of sounds tone and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds. tone Which was a radical notion. But look at us, dubstep does exactly that. And it’s not a small, avant garde space either, it’s literally worldwide popularity. In just under a hundred years, we have gone from dropping monocles to dropping beats. That the popular sonic landscape is this huge is amazing but it might lead you to wonder, what happens next? It always feels like we’ve reached the end of what is possible in the arts but that’s kind of what creativity is all about, right? Trying to figure out more we can do. And dubstep shows that popular music is always expanding, frequently into areas that we used to think were completely unlistenable. And maybe it is only a matter of time until the number one hit is a remix of a fork caught in the garbage disposal. I would listen to that. What do you guys think? What crazy sounds are gunna find their ways into pop music next? Let us know in the comments and if you’ve been watching the show you know exactly what I’m going to say next so I’m not going to say it. It was a post-scarcity party last week, let’s see what you guys had to say: Yes. I meant Survival Mode. Thank you, TheMinihilly, and literally everybody else for reminding me. I’m sorry. gregaaron89 points out that both in Minecraft and in life, it might not actually be that fulfilling if you don’t have to work for what you get and while I agree as far as Minecraft is concerned, I’m not so sure about life. Infinite everything all the time seems pretty neat. Building on that point, IreOfSilverpine says that maybe creativity and novelty would be the new currency which a lot of post-scarcity theorists seem to agree with. So, interesting. Dixavd makes about about how the MakerBot having more potential than current manufacturing technology and makes that point by comparing it to photography which is really interesting and super cool. SirChirsse makes are really smart point about the fact that we might already live in a post-scarcity economy with regards to information and data that we can just copy endlessly and not really lose any resources. Jared James doesn’t think that it is possible at all to reach a post-scarcity economy but that we can get very close and then mentioned my favorite RadioLab episode so... Vaati1980 points out that they think people will transition to more art oriented activities if they don’t have to worry about working to get their resources which I’d like to think is true. StygianWhite and ozzygp11 had an amazing conversation on our last video. It’s a little long to get into right here, but you should go check it out. It is so great. Thanks guys. Great conversations about the last episode on G4TV, Kotaku and BoingBoing. We will put some links in the dooblydoo so you can check it out. And last but certainly not least byulmnida has delivered a fan fic. And it’s pretty good. So stay tuned for updates. theme Category:English Category:Complete